Links 12/9/2024

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1. Antifa December 9, 2024 at 6:58 am

   West Asia

   We have witnessed the downfall of Syria
   Salafists swept through like bacteria
   When his troops came undone
   Assad figured he’d run
   Which is standard dictator criteria

   We dug foxholes right outside Damascus
   But those Toyota guys drove right past us
   So then we felt silly
   Plunked in holes willy nilly
   And surrendered as soon as they asked us

   Assad could see where things were headed:
   Khadaffi got well bayoneted
   But Putin said, ‘Yo’
   ‘Come and live in Moscow’
   ‘It’s much better than being beheaded’

   Now the Syrian Kurds and the Turks
   Will exchange a whole lot of fireworks
   Turkiye’s wistful dreams
   Of their former regimes
   Needs an economy that still works

   The Americans now have Iran in their sights
   Israelis have marched forth from the Golan Heights
   All this year they have warred
   Aren’t they weary or bored?
   Nope. The IDF’s looking for Amalekites

   One third of all oil floats right past Iran
   If they close Hormuz, our economy’s gone
   At $300 per barrel
   Our nation’s in peril
   A king sized colossal black swan
2. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 7:13 am

   ‘Johnny miller
   @johnnyjmils
   Its wild watching all the Western journalists and politicians celebrating an end to secularism in Syria. And the installation of an Al Qaeda linked regime. Wild.’

   Got that beat. Was watching the TV news a few hours ago and you could see that they were following a planned narrative. But then it went way over the top into gaslighting territory when the news presenter wondered what sort of democracy that those groups would form. News flash. Jihadists don’t do democracy.
   1. Zagonostra December 9, 2024 at 7:46 am

      Not necessarily “gaslighting” but if you have been following Alt MSM/Ytubers like Danny Haiphong you would have seen these and numerous other headlines, below is just a small sample.

      Scott Ritter: Putin & Syria will DESTROY Aleppo Offensive, Turkey Loses BIG w/ Andrei Martyanov
      Scott Ritter: Russia CRUSHES NATO with This Move, Turkey Joining BRICS Means Game Over
      Israel is DONE: Iran Readies DEVASTATING Strike, Hezbollah Wrecks IDF w/ Prof. Mohammad Marandi

      I don’t watch TV, haven’t for decades. I thought that I was better informed not to, but now aside from starting my mornings with NC, I’m not sure who has the best take on Int’l, especially ME, reporting. Brian Berletic, Mark Sleboda, and others, including Judge Napolitano’s Roster, have seemed well informed. But what happened this past weekend in Syria has me reassessing any notion that I’m in the least informed.
      1. vidimi December 9, 2024 at 8:54 am

         Danny Haiphong is one of the analysts I completely tuned out some time ago because of his over-the-top clickbait headlines. Nima is quite bad at this, too. Too many hopium and copium peddlers out there, I prefer my doom and gloom.
         1. JMH December 9, 2024 at 10:09 am

            Pretty much an across the board miss on the collapse of Syria. The line is that Assad refused the good advice of Iran and Russia thus bringing about his collapse. Could be. Who knows. It looks certain to me that Israel, the US, and Turkiye were united in wanting to destroy Syria. Will they like what they have created? Who knows. Who’s next? Hezzbollah? Houthis? Both? Whichever one Israel wants to go after, the US will dutifully follow. Did this happen now because Blinken and Sullivan et al feared their Greater Israel project would not be backed enthusiastically enough by DJT? The Empire of Chaos is puffed up with victory. Note the rebranding of Al-Gulani and the softening of HTS’s image day by day. The US is acting as the HTS airforce bombing ISIS in central Syria. The odor of hypocrisy and mendacity is enough to make one sick. You have made your bed DC Bubble and Echo Chamber. Get your profits out quickly.
            1. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 10:13 am

               Things have an 1848 feel in the air, the newly invented telegraph playing a huge part in revolutions back then…
               1. Daniil Adamov December 9, 2024 at 10:45 am

                  What’d they invent this time?
                  1. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 10:57 am

                     It took the pandemic to make people realize they didn’t need to go to office buildings-despite the internet being quite viable since the turn of the century, and this will be another knock-on effect, revolution.
                     1. Giovanni Barca December 9, 2024 at 8:11 pm

                        Weren’t the tech gods of the day promising you that the Internet would save Lusk, Wyoming? I seem to remember it being at least an implied selling point–that one could work from not only home but home town.
               2. Mikel December 9, 2024 at 11:02 am

                  At times, various societies are still struggling with the changes brought about by the printing press.
                  1. Giovanni Barca December 9, 2024 at 8:12 pm

                     Gunpowder too.
               3. Steven A December 9, 2024 at 4:37 pm

                  And the fax machine hurried the collapse of the Soviet Union.
            2. fringe element December 9, 2024 at 12:04 pm

               The odor of hypocrisy and mendacity is enough to make one sick.

               just when I thought legacy media could not sink lower
            3. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 5:54 pm

               Maybe Hezbollah is next. However, against Houtis, without boots on the ground, it is impossible to move. And KSa will saty out of it. Those pesky missiles can wreak their oil installations. A mixed Israeli/US amphibious assault on Houtis would be really nice to watch though….
      2. Chris Cosmos December 9, 2024 at 9:12 am

         The world is waaaay too complicated to be described in simple terms. At least the alt-journalists attempt to pursue the truth and sometimes, as they have been all along, are very wrong. This is particularly true for any description of ME politics. These are ancient cultures in the process of terminal decline–Israel clearly understands all this which is why they are pursuing the politics of force, intimidation, and genocide just as the ancient crusaders did in another period of, in particular, Arab decline.

         Having said that, what the Judge Napolitano crowd don’t seem to understand is the power of the Empire. The Washington-based Empire that is “losing control” has had a few setbacks but, overall, has done very well. Terrorism, military, covert-ops repression, and bribery work very well with wogs around the world particularly in the ME region where there are few illusions concerning “democracy” and the control of the mainstream media has worked in the Empire to create a passive and easily controlled population as we all collectively move into a hybrid totalitarian/neo-feudal social system. Personally, I know we have been living in a post-Constitutional political order in the USA since 2001 where all politics is happening underneath the surface. If you f*ck with the wrong people as Gary Webb, Assange, Hastings and many others then you die or are permanently “out of the picture.” Those of us who followed events, and the history of the Soviet Union, see what I and others had warned about when the Cold War ended that we would take on major aspects of that regime in our own political arrangements. Sure enough, the New York Times has turned into Pravda, which I read only to gauge the political arrangements within the Deep State. The main difference between Moscow of that time and Washington of our time is that the politics are much more complicated but are governed, above all things, by the fist, the gun, and the power to pull strings. There is no democracy in the sense people like Jefferson hoped for but oligarchy.

         Trump may change some of this dynamic to make the oligarchy less toxic to the ordinary people but I’m not holding my breath. I suspect the new boss will be the same as the old boss as the song (Won’t Be Fooled Again”) suggests and people will continue to believe in fantasies out of Hollywood and pour their consciousness into online “communities” that may be better than the old-fashioned human communities.

         Only when we find meaning in something other than consuming vast quantities of whatever will our culture emerge from the darkness rising.
         1. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:23 am

            The trouble with a lot of alt “journalists” is the same as most of MSM:. They are married to a teleological narrative. They believe certain outcomes are “just” and have faith that, somehow, “justice” will be done. FWIW, Doom-and-Gloom is based on justified cynicism.
         2. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:04 pm

            The success of the empire is only against isolated, fractured and impoverished polities. Now Cuba is tethering on the brink and will see what happens to Venezuela. Also, let’s see what happens to American impoverishment and immiseration… The CEO assassination doesn’t bode well…

            However, I give you North Korea for instance (and South Korea as the other side of the coin). Or the taming of Hong Kong, or the relatively soon collapse of Ukraine. I do not foresee any fall of Iran for that matter, and we have to see what lessons the Arab rulers are taking from all this.

            The more the oligarchic fist is squizing, especially in Europe, the sooner the shit will hit the fan. Maybe 2048 will re-enact 1848, but this time the Russian armies will not come in to save the conservative regimes… They will just sit back, eat popcorn, and drink beer.
         3. ArvidMartensen December 9, 2024 at 8:03 pm

            What is becoming clearer now though is the iron fist of the US. It is only when you are growing weaker that you have to show the iron fist.
            People in western countries only saw this briefly, such as in the Vietnam War which was a loss, and going back to the Korean War which was a draw.

            But apart from that there was ‘peace’ across most of the world. Apart from sporadic wars where the US or its proxies went in as ‘peacekeepers’. The bad guys were the Russians. The US was on the side of peace and love and democracy**(**TM), as the press said all the time. How the Democracy sausage was made was a big secret.

            My metric is the backpacker metric.
            After WWII and until say 9/11 a young white backpacker (male) could amble their way across the world on $5 a day and money was their only worry. Not being captured by terrorists or having their hostel bombed or being shot in crossfire or any of that sh*t. Nope, they could explore Europe and Asia and Africa on their bicycle or moped or whatever.
            Them times are now gone and won’t be returning for a long time, if ever. The pax America is gradually being shown for what it always was, a world controlled by fear of the US and US force.
      3. ilsm December 9, 2024 at 9:20 am

         Listened to Larry Johnson on the Judge Friday.

         His feel was “the press is trying to demoralize the SAA”, it could “not be going so bad”: the SAA is not weak, and Assad has a plan. Obviously SAA faded w/o shooting! Assad had a plane not a plan!

         Certainly, the jihafis are not Nazi tanker divisions, but going through like over Sedan in 1940 was happening. Once past the Meuse the French were done!

         I think the SAA was that bad, unmotivated, Assad was looking to retire, and the jihadis had a lot of infiltrating.

         Iran had pulled most advisors and had no presence for quite some time! Hizbollah as well was not present.

         The alt media underestimated the effect of 12 years of CIA organizing among the jihad, overestimated the SAA structure, thought Iran and Russia would grab the Damascus tar baby…..

         Neither has a career supporting the Syrian regime!

         The winners are the forces for dishevelment of order!

         US role is troubling!
         1. Cas December 9, 2024 at 12:40 pm

            I read/listen to Mark Sloboda who provides some perspective from inside Moscow. He was on DDGeopolitics with Rybar, the Russian blogger/former(?) soldier, who lit into the SAA big time. Rybar had fought in Syria and was furious about what was happening. The Syrians were going to fold, were just playing at soldiers for prestige and pay, corrupt and cowardly.
            This was over a week ago, so the collapse wasn’t a complete surprise. Being ever skeptical seems the best position, and try to find sources close to the action. Of course there’s the “who has the time?” factor. Basically, we have no control over events overseas and need to focus on our daily life.
      4. Aurelien December 9, 2024 at 10:19 am

         I had the same reaction, and I tend not to watch such people. Ritter gets over-excited too easily, and Martyanov won’t hear any criticism of the Russians. Ritter, like a lot of the alt-media, is obsessed with the US, and they aren’t the main actors here. I suggested at the time of the cease-fire that the main losers were Hezbollah and Iran (not everyone agreed with me) and it looks like Erdogan made the same calculation. He was right, and, without Iranian and Hezbollah support, and with Russia distracted elsewhere, any serious offensive was going to go straight through the SAA, which was poorly trained, badly led and largely ineffective militarily.

         But this was a well-planned and conducted operation, obviously with a lot of Turkish help, probably commanded by some of the Sunni Syrian officers who fled to Turkey after 2011/12 and with a large helping of ethnic Turkish Syrian soldiers. Film of the attack shows what are obviously conventionally trained soldiers executing quite difficult manoeuvres, and using a certain amount of Soviet-made weaponry, presumably looted from the SAA stocks, as well as Chinese weapons and Turkish made drones. This wasn’t, in other words the shambolic progression of the IS towards Raqqa, it was a serious military operation.

         The best and most objective account I’ve seen was on History Legends a couple of days ago. It’s a very thorough analysis based on careful examination of a lot of footage, and there are things–like film of the widespread use of Turkish-paid Sunni mercenaries from outside the country–which I hadn’t seen elsewhere. The problem of a lot of these people is that their actual base of knowledge and experience is limited, and, having got started on Ukraine they find themselves now obliged to pundit about any new crisis that arises, without necessarily knowing anything about it. You have to ask of people punditing about Syria, Do you know the region? How much time have you spent there? Do you speak Arabic? Can you understand what people in the videos are saying? Are you familiar with the structure of the SAA and Arab Armies generally? How much time have you spent studying jihadist groups? And so on. Where the answer is no, they simply wind up talking about what they know or what they’ve heard, which means in the end that they are of no more value than the mainstream media. (The argument “we may be as wrong as they are but we’re different” is not valid in my opinion.)
         1. PlutoniumKun December 9, 2024 at 11:02 am

            I’m glad you referred to History Legends – I’ve become to rely on him as one of the best ‘real time’ analysts of military and strategic issues. He knows his stuff and never makes the mistake of thinking that ‘my side’ is doing best. He annoys lots of his subscribers by not playing to the gallery which for me is a big plus for him. As you suggest, the others are too wrapped up in their own priors to be objective, while I appreciate their commentary, I don’t take much of what they say seriously anymore.

            So much of what happens here reminds me of those old histories of the Greek wars, where all the real action took place the day before the battle when deals were done, tribes switched sides literally minutes before the first arrow was shot, nobody could be sure of who was on who’s side…

            But what is very clear is that this was exceptionally well planned, at multiple levels. The guys in the Toyotas knew exactly where to go and who would shoot back. They must have been months working away using bribes, threats and whatever works to undermine the SAA. It also makes Israels actions in south Lebanon more logical – clearly they were trying to lure as many Hizbollah units out of Syria as possible. I could never understand how everyone assumed Israel would be stupid enough to repeat the mistakes of 2006. They know their history, and it was clear that something very different was going on over the past few months.

            I think only the Turks have the patience and know-how to have organised this. They’ve been operating in the region for years and nearly all the linguistic/ethnic groups have Turkish ‘cousins’ who could have been used. US/Israel may well have been in on the plot (Israel certainly seem to have known what was coming), but I doubt if they could have done anything more than give high level intelligence and cash. Iran I think is paying the price for having to deal with too many border issues at once – Syria is just one of several active conflict zones they’ve had to address (Armenia and Baluchistan, plus issues with Afghanistan/Pakistan may go largely unremarked, but from the point of view of Tehran are equally, if not more important than what happens in the Levant).

            Whatever you say about Erdogan, this is a triumph for him – he should never, ever be underestimated. He has tied the West and Russia and Iran up in knots, and has achieved what pretty much everyone thought was impossible. He has made Turkey a real player in the region.

            The big question now is his next move. Lots of talk going on around a gas pipeline now going from Qatar to Europe via Syria. He may decide to overtly side with the Gulf States, but he may yet decide to surprise everyone. If he gets Persian Gulf gas running through territory he controls, then he will have an enormous amount of leverage over the Gulf States and Iran and can play them off against each other. Also, watch out for what happens with Armenia – both Turkey and Iran see that country as strategically vital.
            1. NotThePilot December 9, 2024 at 11:56 am

               I’m still surprised how quick and total the takeover is, and I agree that if anybody is a winner here, it’s probably Turkey. While there’s still a lot of fog, it’s also becoming clear there was no traps or grand plan on anyone else’s part. And if there’s a clear loser, it’s probably Russia in this round (and while things are still unclear, possibly the YPG in the Northeast).

               In my mind, the big question now is actually how HTS and the new government treat the minorities who previously flocked to the government side out of (justified) fear. I think that’s the acid test, but contra everyone else, I’m slightly optimistic the more I think through things.

               Only time will tell for sure, but I don’t think the Western media is clever enough to “engineer” Jolani’s rebranding; they’re just fitting him into the same narrative of the rebels they invented over a decade ago. If Jolani has led HTS to this point though, it’s probably not by being a mindless puppet of anyone (puppets are almost always incompetent hacks after all). If he’s like most effective leaders in history, as cynical as the “I’ve grown past my ISIS phase” excuse is, he needs to be a man for all seasons.

               As long as the rebels don’t go after the Shia and Christians though, I don’t interpret things as nearly as bad for the Resistance Axis as some seem to think. Losing an ally is a short-term blow for sure, but people seem to forget that there was always a lot of unease among the other allies about fighting other Muslims to prop up a dictator. Assad falling (and leaning almost entirely on Russia as it happened) removes that fundamental contradiction, the overall momentum in the region is still towards pan-Islamic cooperation, and complex logistics didn’t stop an even weaker Iran from getting materiel past an even more hostile Iraq to build up Hezbollah. Or heck, look at what the Houthis have managed to get their hands on, and Iran wasn’t even really backing them heavily until Saudia and the US memed it into existence (in typical paranoid, self-fulfilling fashion).

               And even if Turkey and Israel cooperated on this, I don’t know why everyone is jumping to the conclusion they’re secretly best buddies. I know everyone mentions the oil trade, but I think that says more about how sacrosanct oil is to modern countries (“the spice must flow”) than how much the Turkish and Israeli governments like each other.

               And I ironically think the recent shift in Armenia, with Azeri-Iranian relations mellowing out, is a positive sign for Turkish-Iranian cooperation. It’s a strong hint that the Great-Gamers had to switch to a weaker plan B. It will end badly for the poor Armenians though. I have no idea what NATO put in their water to convince them to dump the Russians & Iranians, who are somewhat co-ethnic and historically their defenders before the Russians came.
               1. hk December 9, 2024 at 1:18 pm

                  I’m probably being a bit obsessive, but I think his “Jolani/Golani” nom de guerre is carrying some weight–and is likely to act as a constraint on his future actions. You can’t be a Caliph (with “Golan” in your nom de guerre no less) without trying to defend the Umma against infidel invaders in some fashion. Israel is busy land-grabbing now, but that lays the foundation for a conflict soon enough, as will the continuation of the US bases in the East. I figure that Russia will depart the scene before the s**t really hits the fan. Trump, if he has any foresight, should pull US troops out as soon as he comes to office.
               2. Dan Berg December 9, 2024 at 1:21 pm

                  “slightly optomistic”?? about the Middle East?
               3. ArvidMartensen December 9, 2024 at 8:16 pm

                  So here we have two strong forces, Israel and al-Quaeda/Turkey/US, both of which have been known to disparage or kill Christians, being cheered on by the US, the most Christian** country in the world. Oh the irony.
                  And Israel, it seems, is bombing any military depots that could be used by the HTS boys. So, best of buddies then.
                  As others are saying, all aboard the Libya Express.
         2. Bazarov December 9, 2024 at 1:21 pm

            Yes, I’ve commented on this tendency in the alt-media before specifically in the case of Mercouris, but I don’t want to pick on him too much, as it’s an inevitable development of the metastasis of the “24-hour news anchor” ethos to the entire Internet.

            People with a bonafide subject-area expertise, who were called upon to do interviews or who found an audience opining about that subject-area on the internet, suddenly find themselves beholden to the insatiable gullet called, in that absolutely ugly neologism, “content creation”. The truth is, to remain current and viable, the likes of Ritter and Mercouris have to keep feeding the beast. If they don’t update more or less daily, they risk the beast gaping its maw elsewhere.

            Note, for instance, how long the average Mercouris video is (again, not picking on him specifically here, only using him as a familiar example)–verging on an hour and a half per day! The likes of Mercouris and Ritter must soothe the beast’s hunger pangs on a regular basis. To fill the time they opine on matters they don’t know much about.

            This is Andre Martyanov’s gripe about bloggers and telegram channels providing “analysis” regarding military affairs. Military affairs are a serious science. Many of these online talking heads amount to lawyers and landscapers opining about heart surgery.

            What I like about Andre Martyanov also is that he’s a comic character. Full of ridiculous bluster and seemingly unable to notice that his apt criticism applies most of all to himself! Just like Mercouris and Ritter, he can’t resist opining on topics he knows nothing about. Specifically, he makes a complete fool of himself whenever he discusses climate change.

            Finkelstein, who has argued that Gaza is finished for quite awhile now, interestingly has resisted feeding the “content creation” beast. When he does give interviews, he’s very careful to demarcate where he’s speaking from expertise and from uneducated speculation (and he seems unusually reluctant to do the latter).
            1. hk December 9, 2024 at 1:45 pm

               That’s the problem that I ran into in MSM journalism, too. Back in early 1990s, Krugman criticized editorialists and commentators for making nonsensical comments about economics and trade without knowing anything about it. A decade later, as an editorialist himself, he was doing the same about all sorts of other things (and this was affecting his comments about economics, too–where he is supposed to be a genuine expert). So, as a general principle, “journalists” offering comments/interpretations/explanations are not to be trusted and multiple sources must be checked to triangulate the facts–assuming it is at all possible, and not many people (myself included) can do it, even just on one topic area let alone all walks of life…
         3. Chris Cosmos December 9, 2024 at 1:33 pm

            Clearly, the main dynamic was bribery. Arab leaders love bribes. Clearly the SAA was bribed to not fight back because they fought well in the previous iteration of the civil war. This bribability of leaders in the region is why Israel is so confident that they can commit genocide since most Arabs don’t care about their fellows.
      5. Maxwell Johnston December 9, 2024 at 11:16 am

         The Syria collapse was a clean miss across the entire media: both MSM and blogosphere.

         The speed with which the Assad regime crumbled was astonishing, enough to make one wonder if bribes and other inducements were offered to Syrian military commanders as encouragement to cut and run rather than fight. Syria (much like its unfortunate neighbor Lebanon) is a hopeless mess, and I expect that things there will now become even worse. Future generations might very well look back at the Assad half-century as a period of relative stability and tolerance. I wonder if the country will even continue to exist within its present borders.

         The human factor can play a huge difference in the way history plays out (my favorite example being the USSR’s abrupt collapse being triggered by Gorby and Yeltsin’s mutual loathing). Herewith are two interesting news items. Firstly, even Assad’s supporters were fed up with him. The key quote from the linked article: “…Assad managed to piss everyone off, including Iranians and Russians and Turks, everyone, because he has been dragging his feet on efforts to reach a deal with both Turkey and others…” Here is the article (from an Indian news outlet, written early on 7 December before Assad bolted):

         https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/turkey-russia-and-iran-meet-in-doha-seeking-exit-from-syria-chaos/article68957979.ece

         Secondly, while the rebels were advancing on all fronts, Assad’s son was successfully defending his PhD math thesis at one of Russia’s top universities:

         https://www.intellinews.com/assad-s-son-defends-his-phd-thesis-at-moscow-state-university-356567/

         I don’t think we should discount the possibility that Assad himself was sick and tired of playing dictator and wanted out. Bashar Assad always struck me as being a mild-mannered beta male, certainly not a ruthless type like his father (or Saddam or MBS or Netanyahu et al); he was training to be an ophthalmologist (in London!) when his older brother (whom Papa Assad was grooming to be the successor) was killed in a car crash. Bashar was the reluctant heir, and it was written all over his face from day one. With recent events forcing him to choose between trying to govern a wreck of a country (with a rapidly deteriorating security situation) versus living quietly in Moscow with his UK-born wife and their three children, he apparently opted for the latter. Can’t say that I blame him.
         1. pjay December 9, 2024 at 5:28 pm

            The irritating thing about your portrait of Bashar Assad (among countless irritating things about this war) is that the mainstream Western press was quite familiar with Assad and his wife and emphasized this picture of the “mild-mannered reluctant ruler” – before he became the “sadistic killer Demon Assad”. Same with his beautiful, cultured, British-born wife, who if I remember correctly had glowing puff-pieces written about her in publications like Vogue. I mention this because I just read this story from The Telegraph, re-posted at Yahoo:

            “What now for Asma al-Assad – the former British public schoolgirl turned international pariah”

            https://www.yahoo.com/news/now-asma-al-assad-former-203012956.html

            Here’s how it starts:

            “What must Asma al-Assad be thinking right now? Bright, beautiful and British-born, she could be living an affluent life in England, with friends, family and a fine career, had she not sold her soul to the devil. As it is, she is an international pariah, the wife of a monster responsible for more than half a million deaths, and she faces – along with her three children – the very real prospect of spending the rest of her days in joyless exile in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”

            I don’t know the circumstances of Assad’s capitulation. But I do know that during the earlier civil war both Assad and his wife often performed bravely, carrying out duties, appearing in public, and refusing to leave Damascus even rebel forces seem to be closing in. Conditions no doubt changed dramatically over the last 10 years. As for our media… I’m waiting for al-Jolani’s glowing GQ article to come out any day now.
         2. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:17 pm

            “I don’t think we should discount the possibility that Assad himself was sick and tired of playing dictator and wanted out. Bashar Assad always struck me as being a mild-mannered beta male, certainly not a ruthless type like his father (or Saddam or MBS or Netanyahu et al); he was training to be an ophthalmologist (in London!) when his older brother (whom Papa Assad was grooming to be the successor) was killed in a car crash. Bashar was the reluctant heir, and it was written all over his face from day one. With recent events forcing him to choose between trying to govern a wreck of a country (with a rapidly deteriorating security situation) versus living quietly in Moscow with his UK-born wife and their three children, he apparently opted for the latter. Can’t say that I blame him.”

            That was my bet too. The picture shown of him and his wife aparently now in Moscow indicate a family that is no longer between a rock and a hard place. I am looking for the Catch-22 book on this.
      6. Michael Fiorillo December 9, 2024 at 4:40 pm

         My current mantra is that I don’t trust anyone’s politics, not even my own.
         1. Donaldo December 9, 2024 at 8:13 pm

            I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.
      7. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 5:51 pm

         Sleboda and Korybko inject good doses of realism in their analyses. Helmer too and Mercuris tries to never go over the top.

         Unfortunately Scott Ritter is still a marine and just charges with his opinions.
   2. doug December 9, 2024 at 7:47 am

      I watched the ‘local’ ABC station news yesterday and was amazed at what was reported about Syria. It seemed scripted/prearranged due to how much and what they had to say….
      1. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 8:17 am

         I was following MoA over the weekend, at at one point Reuters reported that Assad’s plane had crashed … implying he was dead.

         Another black eye on our lovely mainstream press. Why bother with those pesky practices like waiting for confirmation, using multiple sources, and vetting them? Nah, just spit out a Telegram rumor.
      2. Louis Fyne December 9, 2024 at 8:30 am

         for anything non-US, the local new directors just rehash whatever is on their network wire, whether they are ABC-owned or “franchisee”-owned. they have no idea what is going on unless there is also an adjacent story about the local reaction

         you can hear it in the Stepford-Wives voices of the anchors as they read the teleprompters, they might as well be reading.quantum mechanics formulas or Gaelic
         1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 9:54 am

            An anecdote about this you and others may find amusing. I use “google news” as one of my feeds to see what the powers that be want me to be thinking about. For those unfamiliar with this platform, the “news” is broken down into categories not unlike reading the Times, “World”, “US”, “Sports”, etc. Generally, these categories will have a couple dozen subject articles of which you can explore further by clicking the such labeled tab. Late last night, under “World” there were but eight subject articles which went Syria, Syria, Ukraine, Syria, Syria, Something about Trump feeling short compared to Prince William lol, Ukraine, Syria. It’s a small world after all, I guess.
      3. schmoe December 9, 2024 at 11:08 am

         Funny how the MSM narrative was filled with doom and gloom for women’s rights in Afghanistan when the Taliban returned, but I have not heard a peep about concern for women’s rights as a “liberal” secular government is replaced by fundamentalists. Other than the Times article pushing HTS as a “DEI” version of the Taliban.
   3. upstater December 9, 2024 at 8:44 am

      re. As Syria Falls Under NATO Influence, Its Large Soviet Arsenals Could Soon Flow to Ukraine Military Watch

      4000 armored vehicles, 1000 T72s and 1000 T62s. Mig 29s and SU 24s.

      Moving those things to Ukraine needs a lot of ships out of Syria into Greece or thousands of flatbeds overland through Turkey. Would Russia allow this? Could they stop it?
      1. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 8:51 am

         HTS and Turkiye may have other designs on that stuff. Remember, the SDF is still in control of the east and the Turks hate them with a red-hot fury. And Israel looms as a threat to the south.

         It would be premature to give up weapons that they will need.
      2. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 8:59 am

         If I were those Jihadists, I wouldn’t be so quick to get rid of all that military equipment. Between Israel and Turkiye wanting to take chunks off Syria and maybe a fight looming with the Kurds to get back those oil fields and wheat fields, they may need them. And then you have groups like ISIS and others wanting back in. Since there are only about 30,000 of them, they may find it necessary to call back all those Syrian soldiers to their formations under the new flag. But I would be not surprised to see a lot of countries demanding that Jihadist Syria disarm themselves and put their faith in other countries to protect them.

         Just reminded of something. Those 30,000 Jihadists? When the US invaded & occupied Iraq, the original plan was to totally abolish the Iraq Army, Navy & Air Force. The only thing that the Iraqis would be allowed was a sort of border control and it too was to number 30,000 but of course that did not work out. Actually when I think about it, if I were those Jihadists I would insist that the Russians stay in Syria – so long as they service all that Russian military equipment.
         1. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:36 am

            I keep thinking that a guy with nom de guerre “Golani” would not remain at peace in the medium to long term with the guys occupying the Golan. Plus, resisting Israel will give the Jihadis instant credibility in the region and they probably need it, too: they want to be a real caliphate, they better start defending the Islamic umma against infidel invaders, not act as their stooges and help them steal more. Turkey gets a pass–not infidel. But this means that everyone should expect a clash with both Israel and US, especially if they want to keep playing the Kurdish game.

            It’s a given that they won’t give up weapons. Israel is acting frisky around the Golan. The fighting with the Kurds seems to be intensifying.
      3. ilsm December 9, 2024 at 9:23 am

         CIA contractors could set up a ben Gazi type operation as in 2012.

         They don’t have much experience with heavy vehicles nor overland!
      4. ciroc December 9, 2024 at 9:32 am

         I think Russia’s biggest concern is that the most advanced radar for the S-400 air defense system has fallen into the hands of forces financed by the West.

         https://www.defensemirror.com/news/38315/Syrian_Rebels_Capture_Russia_s_Latest_S_400___s_Podlet_K1_Radar__T_90_Battle_Tanks_in_Syria
      5. Maxwell Johnston December 9, 2024 at 11:23 am

         Those weapons will stay in-country. And they will be used. I agree with Big Serge and Armchair Warlord: the war (wars?) in Syria is (are?) just getting started.
      6. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:22 pm

         Israel would rather have them destroied…
   4. Joker December 9, 2024 at 10:34 am

      Just like in the good ol’ days when Soviets left Afghanistan. The whole free world was celebrating. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
3. DJG, Reality Czar December 9, 2024 at 7:45 am

   Kaja Kallas is a disaster waiting to happen. Politico article, reporting the usual “she’s an unstoppable blah blah” angle. The usual conventional wisdom about how bringing in some bourgeoise is going to “shake up things.”

   And yet there’s a series of remarkable blunders by her, which only come out fairly far into the piece. To wit, ‘Kallas was next to take the floor. “She dropped the prepared speech,” a diplomat recalled. “She answered Orbán directly, saying how wrong he was and that history and facts show that NATO’s aim is to avoid wars, and not to provoke [conflict].”’

   Yep, the same NATO pressed into service in places like the dismantled Yugoslavia, an inconvenient state that is so much better off as four, five, six easily corrupted statelets. And I’m hearing news from Romania these days…

   She is also suffering from a kind of insanity we see among women of the elite: War is a solution to problems. War is really just an opportunity to smart-mouth and grift, and the thousands, the millions of dead, somehow don’t exist for Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland, and Ursula van der Leyen. They unintentionally reinforce the idea of Smedley Butler, War is a racket.

   As Eva Cantarella recently noted in an interview in Fatto Quotidiano: “Aumentano le donne al potere eppure regrediscono i diritti delle donne. Un bel paradosso professoressa. Un paradosso solo per chi immagina che una donna al potere sia per ciò stesso una buona notizia per le donne.”

   I also find their tendency to personalize foreign relations, as if they were in some personal jousting match with V Putin or V Orban, to be fantasy land. It’s a Harlequin Romance of foreign policy.
   1. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 8:22 am

      I think that you might be right. I think that her job will to become the attack dog of the EU and stare down Putin and not to be a diplomat as seen in that incident with Merkel and with Orban. Maybe though at their first meeting Putin can hand her an envelope and when she asks what it is, say that it is a tax demand on her husband’s business dealings with Russia. Years ago Hillary Clinton gathered around her a group of war-mongering women who were nicknamed ‘Hillary’s Harpies.’ I am wondering if Ursula von der Leyen is also doing the same and Kaja Kallas is just one of them. But like you said, she is just a disaster waiting to happen.
      1. JohnA December 9, 2024 at 9:00 am

         When Kallas and Baerbock stand side by side, dumb and dumber springs to mind. However, it is impossible to say which is which.
      2. Neutrino December 9, 2024 at 9:16 am

         Will their outfits have shoulder pads?
         Appropriate haircuts?
         Gotta do some optics massaging to fit the theme. /s
      3. divadab December 9, 2024 at 12:48 pm

         Kallas is an attorney, a member of Estonian technocratic elite. Presumably, not a lightweight intellectually. But, like Blinken (also an attorney, presumably also intelligent), she sees her job as chief EU diplomat NOT to communicate with Putin. Blinken has had no communication with Putin or Lavrov for over two years! And this is what they think is diplomacy? It’s simply abdication of their responsibility as diplomats. SO handsome, so nice to look at, so well-spoken, so utterly incompetent.
   2. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:38 am

      You forgot the Butcher(ess?) of Baghdad, Mad Maddie Albright.
      1. Lazar December 9, 2024 at 11:55 am

         For her Iraqi blood was business, and Serbian was pleasure.
         1. divadab December 9, 2024 at 12:58 pm

            Don’t forget that Ghoul Jake Sullivan. Tales from the Crypt…..Jake the Cryptkeeper.
   3. OIFVet December 9, 2024 at 2:10 pm

      The new breed of Western diplomats seem to think of diplomacy as a prelude to war, not as a way to resolve issues and avoid it. Hence the fetish with Kallas being “undiplomatic”.

      On a related note, the Eastern European tail is wagging the EU dog and that’s the culmination of the US project to replace the Old Europe with the New Europe that began with Rumsfeld’s displeasure with the aversion to unnecessary wars of the former.
   4. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:24 pm

      The Politico article teleports itself over the period of time in which Kallas parents served the Soviet regime in their country such that they and their sweet daughter had a very plush and privilegded life.
4. griffen December 9, 2024 at 7:47 am

   No I haven’t been laughing at the murder of a high ranking CEO for one of the largest insurance conglomerates in this country. But I get to this paragraph and maybe the author should have pointed these facts out much later in the article. Adding I do tend to think more information is still needed and useful to understand the motives, etc…

   “Thompson became CEO in 2021 and during his tenure revenues increased and the division profits improved from $12 billion to $16 billion during that time…”. That’s greater than a 25% increase, FFS. Profits all good but the company or division providing actual care and benefits… negotiable?
   1. flora December 9, 2024 at 8:26 am

      re:
      “Are we really so divided, so used to dehumanizing one another, that people are out here openly celebrating the cold-blooded murder denial of life saving care of a hardworking family man — all for a single uptick in UHC stock price?”

      Fixed it for The New Yorker. / ;)
      1. Michaelmas December 9, 2024 at 8:58 am

         Actually, the NY article itself recognizes that many Americans consider the Thompson assassination to be the murder of a murderer-for-profit and discusses the valid reasons why that is.

         The hed — the headline — is probably a copy desk editor’s contribution. That’s actually the main function of MSM copy desks: to ensure that nothing gets released that doesn’t conform to the Official Groupthink narrative.
         1. Neutrino December 9, 2024 at 9:20 am

            Sincerity in delivery, reminiscent of Ol’ Joe intoning Hardworking American Families among his rote throw-away lines.
            1. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 9:24 am

               ‘The key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that you’ve got it made.’

               ― George Burns
            2. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:29 pm

               The question nobody seems to be asking is why the American families have to be soooo hard working?
         2. pjay December 9, 2024 at 11:03 am

            Yes. When I saw the headline, and the fact that it was from the New Yorker, I had a knee-jerk reaction based on most of the other New Yorker articles I’ve read over the last decade or two. But this is actually a good one, with information well worth reading and passing on to others. I think the general public response to Thompson’s murder reflects our own experiences and our general sense of injustice. But articles like this provide more specific evidence that we are not imagining things or expressing some sort of uninformed populist resentment.
      2. Carolinian December 9, 2024 at 9:25 am

         Remnick must be worried and hiring bodyguards like those tech execs.
   2. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 9:30 am

      I see quite the parallel with 1930’s bank robbers who became folk heroes in spite of their murdering ways…

      Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
      I’ve seen lots of funny men;
      Some will rob you with a six-gun,
      And some with a fountain pen.
      And as through your life you travel,
      Yes, as through your life you roam,
      You won’t never see an outlaw
      Drive a family from their home.

      Pretty Boy Floyd, by Woody Guthrie

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4zHMjItFwA
   3. Donaldo December 9, 2024 at 10:24 am

      It’s OK to dehumanize one another, and openly celebrate the cold-blooded murder of hardworking family men, as long as it is done in the name of democracy, and freedom, and equality, and Israel, and USA, USA, USA!
   4. neutrino23 December 9, 2024 at 3:11 pm

      I find it incredibly hypocritical of those in the media decrying any support for the murder of the UHC CEO when they fail to similarly confront the inhumanity of denying health care in search of obscene profits.
   5. Steven A December 9, 2024 at 4:43 pm

      I wonder – because I cherish irony – if life insurance companies will ramp up premiums for health insurance executives. Or perhaps decide they are uninsurable?
   6. John k December 9, 2024 at 6:52 pm

      Well, lots are dying painfully in Gaza and elsewhere. He went pretty quick. And his company imo cost plenty of painful lengthy deaths. So I’m cool with anybody taking pleasure with his passing.
      He’s making a little list… they’d never be missed… I feel the same about quite a few in dc /wall st/Silicon Valley/eu. Imagine all those fortunes re-distributed.
5. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 7:48 am

   The Little Saint Zee – Sung to the tune of “The Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys

   Ooh … cancel Christmas, Saint Zee
   (Gravy train left town this year)
   Ooh – ooh

   Well, way up north, where the air gets cold
   There’s a tale about a grifter that you’ve all been told
   And a real famous cat dressed like GI Joe
   And he spends the whole year beggin’ for some more of your dough

   It’s the little Saint Zee (ooh … little St. Zee)
   It’s the little Saint Zee (ooh … little Saint Zee)

   Just a little racket we call it feed the beast
   But she’ll walk a committee with their palms a-greased
   “We’d better fight them reds, with an eighties zeal!”
   And when Powell hits the gas, man, just watch ’em deal!

   It’s the little Saint Zee (oooh .. St. Zee)
   (repeat)

   Run run Saint Zee!
   Run run Saint Zee!
   Whoa
   Run run Saint Zee!
   Run run Saint Zee!

   (He don’t miss no one)

   The Kursk offensive didn’t go so well
   Just a half a dozen villages, now frozen in Hell
   Don’t feel bad for our boy, cause he’s coming to our shores
   And he’s goosing out his pad with some new hardwood floors

   It’s the little Saint Zee (ooh little Saint Zee) 2x

   ooh cancel Christmas, Saint Zee
   (Gravy train left town this year)

   wah-ah-ah cancel Christmas, Saint Zee
   (Gravy train left town this year)

   Wah-ah-ah Cancel Christmas, Saint Zee
   (Gravy train left town this year)
6. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 7:56 am

   “Why top internet sleuths say they won’t help find the UnitedHealthcare CEO killer”

   Those top internet sleuths said that they would love to help but unfortunately are working second and third jobs to pay down their medical healthcare bills so do not have the time to spare. That article ended with this tidbit-

   ‘Police have offered a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.’

   I briefly wondered how many hours that late United Healthcare CEO would have worked to earn that amount of money.
   1. griffen December 9, 2024 at 8:03 am

      Simple math on a weekly paycheck, assumption of a year that features 50 weeks for working ( and will assume a 10 to 12 hour workday not including off hours or weekends )…I can easily get to a weekly payday of $200,000. Yeah that is legitimately a good income stream.

      Also, executive leadership at that level very likely get a suite of perks and features to keep them loyal and interested in a long term future. I don’t have a good grasp what that might include.
   2. Randall Flagg December 9, 2024 at 9:30 am

      Money talks so get serious. Maybe United Healthcare should chip in an increase to the reward for information leading to yada, yada, to say, 2/3/4 million and I’m sure the detectives will come out of the woodwork in droves.
      1. Steve H. December 9, 2024 at 9:37 am

         The dog that didn’t bark.
      2. redleg December 9, 2024 at 8:21 pm

         They’ll chip in the 2/3/4 million but when it comes time to pay it they’ll say “the information wasn’t medically necessary -payment denied.”
7. Sam Adams December 9, 2024 at 7:57 am

   Twenty years ago I heard, “successful and easily accessible social programs are not created for the common people or poor, they are enacted as revolution insurance.” Somewhere around 1980 the US plutocrats forgot to pay the premium.
   1. DJG, Reality Czar December 9, 2024 at 8:04 am

      Sam Adams: Agreed. It goes without saying that many “fiscal conservatives” don’t get that, but one of the failures of U.S. liberalism is their deep-sixing of the idea that social programs and financial benefits buy social peace.

      As the blogger Digby wrote years ago, and repeated, after a series of violent crimes and other incidents: For many of the people involved, particularly young men, what they truly need is a job.

      But of course the U.S. government has no jobs program except for military service.
   2. Louis Fyne December 9, 2024 at 8:33 am

      if you want to be cynical, that is why the borders were open. intra-class warfare across sectarian identities.

      I prefer the simplier 1-D chess motivation, the slaughterhouses need human meat as much as cattle. True in Upton Sinclair/’s time, true today.
   3. ciroc December 9, 2024 at 9:45 am

      Yes, Bismarck established the world’s first social insurance system to protect fledgling German capitalism from the socialists. The biggest beneficiaries of that system were the factory working class, who did not support the Nazis until the end of the Weimar Republic.
   4. hk December 9, 2024 at 1:55 pm

      They drank the “democracy” kool aid, that it really “works” and that they (and their programs) really are the chosen of the People(tm). A funny thing is that authoritarians and authoritarian adjacent don’t suffer from that delusion. Thus, functioning authoritarian regimes tend to be quite highly competently run (whether these can stay functional for too long is a different question–some sort of feedback on their performance is required and free and fair elections are a good way to do them, so an electoral authoritarianism (with free and fair elections–important) might be the right kind of compromise.)

      To expand on the electoral authoritarianism a bit more, the argument actually came from the Singaporeans, and the free- and fairness of the elections they run is an important component of this logic. After all, they want to have the people tell them what is what isn’t working with their governance so they can adjust. (Even if the elections are more or less free and fair, there are enough moving parts that they can tinker with so that their hold on power is not really threatened, as long as they rule competently.) This is in contrast to their counterparts in US, who start with the premise that they already are the chosen of the People ™ so any election process that says otherwise must be wrong and outcomes that say otherwise must be corrupt in some fashion. People who don’t presume “democracy” (like Singaporean leaders) don’t suffer from this delusion.
8. DJG, Reality Czar December 9, 2024 at 7:59 am

   New Yorker, what the murder of CEO Brian Thompson means (from the URL, rather than the finger-wagging school-marm-y headline).

   What is Jia Tolentino’s point? My surmise is that the article is the official bourgeois view of what the crime is about. One must look at twice sides of the story, and one must add weight to the overwrought concerns of the bourgeoisie, which would be the New Yorker’s advertisers and readership.

   She slips and lets the resentment of her social class show: “The whiff of populist anarchy in the air is salty, unprecedented, and notably across the aisle. New York Post comment sections are full of critiques of capitalism as well as self-enriching executives and politicians (like “Biden and his crime family”).”

   Oh? You mean that Joe Biden’s pardons aren’t about crimes? What are they? Petit fours?
   1. Carolinian December 9, 2024 at 9:35 am

      A DMZ soon needed around the Hamptons? That would be a damned shame.

      Of course the PMC paranoia about Trump was always about physical danger to the plutocrats and a desire–no hypocrisy there–that someone would take him out.
      1. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:44 am

         DMZ at the 17th parallel did not stop PAVN, just sayin’.
   2. jm December 9, 2024 at 11:07 am

      Maybe not the point, but the subtext is that she is beginning to realize that despite her PMC status and comfortably large salary she makes nowhere near enough to afford personal security services.
      1. jm December 9, 2024 at 11:21 am

         Shorter
         1. Michaelmas December 9, 2024 at 5:07 pm

            jm: she is beginning to realize that despite her PMC status and comfortably large salary she makes nowhere near enough to afford personal security services.

            PMC status? Comfortably large salary?
            
            Average New Yorker staffer salary is $81,931.

            That doesn’t go far in New York or even Brooklyn these days. Tolentino is just another mope (whether she knows it or not).

            For comparison’s sake —

            Average Executive Secretary salary in New York is $80,101

            New Yorker writers like Tolentino make the same money as secretaries. So they’re mopes, however glorified.
            1. aletheia33 December 9, 2024 at 5:37 pm

               she may well be backed up by heavy parental investment, as she accumulates the hefty social capital of working at the New Yorker. in service of that social capital, i imagine she is trying to opine with just the right amount of detached journalistic skepticism, for which NYker has been so well known, and which they have not quite lost the knack of, though a more banal self-righteousness seems to be here creeping in.

               i haven’t read the piece b/c i know i couldn’t stand it, so please take what i’ve said here as lightly as it is meant. actually i suspect what she wrote is worse than what i’ve said, but that’s just me, suspecting, ymmv.
      2. chris December 9, 2024 at 12:07 pm

         That could become a problem for this entire class of people if the proposals to reinstate dueling ever catch on…
   3. Jeff W December 9, 2024 at 1:34 pm

      What is Jia Tolentino’s point? My surmise is that the article is the official bourgeois view of what the crime is about.

      I wondered about that, too, and agree with your conclusion. Tolentino says “The only way to end up in a situation where a C.E.O. of a health-insurance company is reflexively viewed as a dictatorial purveyor of suffering is through a history of socially sanctioned death” but steers clear away from any conclusions.

      I’m sort of fascinated, in a cynical way, by all these “analyses” that avoid the painfully obvious. Maya Goldman of Axios says “People tend to like their own insurer but distrust the industry — and indeed, the health system at large.” The New Republic’s Matt Ford points to “the state of our democracy…Americans have fewer and fewer lawful means to peacefully address social and economic issues or resolve disputes among themselves” and, of course, “both a continuation and an expansion of the ongoing resurgence of violence in political life.”

      Whatever one thinks about “distrust” and powerlessness and violence, it seems pretty clear to me that people hate with the intensity of a thousand suns, as lambert likes to say, this insane “system” of having some entity—whose business model is predicated on denying the very service they are supposed to provide—mediate between them and the health care they need. That, to me, seems entirely sensible and no other people in the advanced world puts up with it. But if that were acknowledged, we might run the risk of having to deal with it.

      Instead, we get this “psychologizing” of the overwhelming response of the public—its underlying meaning is really x and, well, that’s either too systemic (“democracy”) to deal with anyway or not even explanatory, just descriptive (“distrust”). These writers seem to think they’re saying something insightful while the rest of us are just rolling eyes—it’s not even cluelessness, it’s cluelessness about being clueless.
9. Ignacio December 9, 2024 at 8:00 am

   Trump says RFK Jr. will investigate the discredited link between vaccines and autism: ‘Somebody has to find out’ NBC News

   …or chlorine water says Trump. An important recent discovery shows that not only we have markers for ASD but also have better comprehension of the biochemical mechanisms involved in disease development. So we are armed with tools to investigate what kinds of factors might be associated with disease development (very difficult) and possibly design treatments to reverse those changes (very challenging though possible). Research hasn’t shown any relationship between child vaccination and Autism. Probing a negative hypothesis is a recipe for endless and almost certainly sterile research and waste of resources. A more open minded not prejudiced approach is needed.
   1. Tom67 December 9, 2024 at 8:36 am

      I used to think RFK is a crank. But now I wonder. Fact is that the US gave liabilty protection to vaccine makers in 1986 and the number of CDC recommended childhood vaccines rose from less than ten to 73 today. The incidence of autism rose manifold during the same time frame. Of course there could be some other factor that also started to have an impact at around the same time. We just don´t know and the pharmaceutical industry makes sure that vaccines as possible cause aren´t even considered. Remember Vioxx or any other medical desaster that ended with the involved companies paying a penalty that amounted to a fraction of their profits?
      I personally consider the paharmaceutical industry as about as ethically minded as the drug cartels. Except the drug cartels don´t rule the airwaves as the US is one of only two countries in the world (the other being New Zealand) which allows ads for prescription drugs. Follow the money regarding vaccine coverage of legacy media. Let´s see whether RFK will be able to reign in Big Pharma. I am rather doubtful.
      1. Ignacio December 9, 2024 at 8:58 am

         During the time frame you mention what changed is the diagnosis (improved) so the incidence of ASD now and in 1986 are not comparable. It is now a more ample set of diseases with different manifestations. In 1986 much of it was probably not diagnosed as ASD.
      2. Neutrino December 9, 2024 at 9:25 am

         Awaiting the hearings to see what the Big Pharma CEOs and flaks can spin. They may as well have the networks on retainer. :(

         Other outlets may have more actual journalists so greater chances at uncovering some news.
      3. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:46 am

         When the PTB are lying to you through the nose, even cranks are right more often than not, and in fact, are the best people to lead the fight.
      4. JustTheFacts December 9, 2024 at 4:45 pm

         Supposedly a “scientific fact” was established for all time that “X cannot cause Y”. This is illogical. The world was known to be flat, until it wasn’t, and in this case biology is a lot more complicated than figuring out the shape of planets.

         As our understanding of the world progresses, we learn about new (to us) mechanisms. If we never review previously “established” “facts”, we stupidly limit our understanding of the world.

         There is no scientific justification not to review all possible causes for the rise of Y, every couple of decades, particularly if it causes suffering. Perhaps some youngster (or open minded oldster) will see something everyone else missed… or was discouraged from seeing because someone always benefits from maintaining the status quo.

         To decide that the wisdom passed down by our ancestors is unquestionable is not scientific. It is religious, whatever the values of X and Y.
      5. Doubt December 10, 2024 at 2:55 am

         Fact is that the US gave liabilty protection to vaccine makers in 1986 and the number of CDC recommended childhood vaccines rose from less than ten to 73 today.

         There are currently 12 distinct vaccines recommended for children up to the age of 6. Some of these are given multiple times, but the number doesn’t add up to 73, no matter how you count it. After the age of 6, the number of vaccinations would be irrelevant so far as their relation to autism is concerned.

         The incidence of autism rose manifold during the same time frame.

         The amount of lead pollution in the environment decreased in the same timeframe. Does that mean lead was preventing autism the whole time? It’s not as if I should have to say this, but correlation isn’t causation.

         We just don´t know

         Evidence for the original study was thin, based on a sample size of 12, and it was fraudulent. Moreover, thimerosol is no longer used as a preservative in MMR vaccines, but the incidence of autism is still increasing (which is why the anti-vax argument has transmogrified from a model with a definite cause into the handwavey “too much too soon”).

         Follow the money regarding vaccine coverage

         If you want to “follow the money,” there’s more money to follow than the pharmaceuticals industry:

         Unbeknownst to the editors or readers at the time, however, Andrew Wakefield had filed a patent for virological testing in 1995 (Wakefield 1995). He had been engaged as an expert by lawyer Richard Barr since February 1996 to work on a potential lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers (Sayer et al. vs. Smithkline et al. 2007). He was paid in total £435,643 (about $568,700 at current exchange rates) for this work (Deer 2007). Both the editor of Lancet (Horton) and a vice dean of the Royal Free and University College School of Medicine (Hodgson) stated in writing that this conflict should have been disclosed. Failing to disclose such an obvious potential monetary conflict of interest in the outcome was a form of falsification of the record to facilitate publication and improve the perceived impact of the findings.

         I have no idea why so many people here don blinders when it comes to RFJ Jr. and anti-vax bug-chasers.
         1. Tom67 December 10, 2024 at 8:47 am

            Here is the CDC schedule until the age of 18 months. Insane! 22 shots! https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/imz-schedules/child-adolescent-age.html
            In Germany it is 4.
            Furthermore: why do US babies get a Hepatitis B shot at birth? Hepatitis B is extremely rare among children as it is transmitted through infected blood and bodily fluids. No vaccine is entirely risk free and you give it only to healthy people if the risk of infection is greater than the risk of the vaccine. In Germany I got the Hepatitis B vaccine only after a lengthy talk with my doctor. And by the way: even in Germany there is talk now that the vaccine schedule for kids might be to frequent as vaccines can influence each others in as yet unknown ways.
   2. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 9:13 am

      A more open minded not prejudiced approach is needed. I agree. About those wasted resources, I agree again. I’ve been privy to NIH review panel discussions. You will not be surprised to learn that many of these grant applications are tweaked versions of previously successful applications. I know one researcher who pretty much writes the same paper again and again. Another takes whatever public health issue is vogue and submits a grant to study how this affects heath outcomes for people with aids. These usually get funded, even though the outcomes generally mimic the outcomes of the overall population.
      The NIH has earned the reputation of an old boys club. The incoming administration seems to want to shake it up. Now would be a terrific time for some civic minded scientists to come up with their own “Great Barrington” document detailing a reformation of the grant writing and funding process, lest the crazies write for them.
   3. chris December 9, 2024 at 12:12 pm

      I think a more open minded approach is the only thing that has a chance of restoring medicine to it’s previous role in our society. Too many have been lied to for too long. Too many have been told other people’s mistakes are the fault of the public. Too many have personally harmed in terms of health and money.

      If the worst that RFK Jr. does is settle some minds so that some vaccines are in the “we can’t find any wrong” bucket that will be a good thing. If he actually uncovers any issues, that might help people too. Most likely this will be a dumb distraction.
   4. Greg Taylor December 9, 2024 at 2:29 pm

      Probing a negative hypothesis is a recipe for endless and almost certainly sterile research and waste of resources.

      All drug safety research is “probing a negative hypothesis.” After seeing how industry designed and conducted mRNA studies to ensure no safety issues were found, I’m skeptical about any prior “research” on other drugs. When I see statements like “research hasn’t shown any relationship between….” I immediately wonder how hard did the researchers look, who did the looking, and how independent were they? I’m almost never satisfied with the answers.
10. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 8:10 am

    “Two Lessons From the Syrian Collapse”

    ‘The first is that frozen conflicts are poison. When Russia and Hezbollah and Iran and some Syrian units were winning, rather than make an agreement for a frozen conflict, they should have pushed on. Leaving enemies in the country and the oil fields in US/Kurdish hands was foolish and fatal. Letting enemies flee to Turkey then be sent back was fatal.’

    Ian Welsh is doing some purposeful forgetting here. The Jihadists had retreated to Idlib province and when the Syrians were gearing up to clean them out and push them back to Turkiye, were told that if they did so they would be also at war with the US, UK and France. Same with the US base at al-Tanf and the US occupation of the wheat and oil fields in the country’s east. Does Ian Welsh think that the Syrian military at the time could fight not only the Jihadists but also the US, UK, France and probably Turkiye as well? Blind Freddy could tell you that it was not on.
    1. Mike December 9, 2024 at 9:30 am

       So, Assad must have known his days were numbered when that cease-fire was struck, No amount of Russian backing would guarantee his survival in power if all those resources were lined up against him. I think a more fundamental reason for the collapse was general lack of support within the Syrian population plus the defection of the army. No country can withstand that when coupled with US cash freely flowing to all comers who’ll raise the flag.
    2. fringe element December 9, 2024 at 3:57 pm

       Rev – If Ian got something wrong I know he would appreciate hearing about it. You don’t have to subscribe to comment at his website.
11. Es s Ce Tera December 9, 2024 at 8:11 am

    I’ll just put it here that I think Russia suggested to Assad that he cede control, bring himself and his family to Russia for safety, and then probably invited HTS to come in.

    Which, if true, means Russia negotiated a resolution to the conflict for all Syrian factions.

    I further wondered if this is NOT a win for Israel because HTS/Al Nusra/AQ/ISIS are about removing the Imperial West from the region, and Israel is the Imperial West AND has annexed Golan Heights. Further, we see that Israel has taken the opportunity to grab even more Syrian territory under pretexts.

    HTS supposedly supports the Palestinians in their struggle, has expressed solildarity (this is according to ChatGPT, unfortunately, and unable to confirm/deny because HTS is censored).

    And Israel prepping for a confrontation along the border kindasorta suggests HTS is not Israel friendly or that they’re expecting what becomes the Syrian government will also not be Israel friendly.

    Now I see Biden groveling and extending an olive branch to ISIS/Al Qaeda. I’m tending to see this groveling as admission of US/Israel being in an awkward position vis a vis developments in Syria.
    1. Yves Smith December 9, 2024 at 8:25 am

       Sorry, Lavrov, in what Alexander Mercouris depicts as the pissiest interview he has ever given, said otherwise to Aljazeera. The Foreign Ministry site also depicts themselves as not a party. When Russia lies, it is usually by omission. They would be called out sooner rather than later if they misrepresented on something this significant.

       And the “extreme concern” in the opening line means they are absolutely not happy with what has gone down. From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site, at the top of their latest statement (not even labeled as about Syria):

       We are following the dramatic developments in Syria with extreme concern. Following his talks with a number of participants in the armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad decided to step down as the Syrian President and leave the country, instructing the government to transfer power peacefully. Russia was not a party in those negotiations.

       https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1986189/

       As Mark Sleboda stressed on RT (!!!), this outcome is absolutely terrible for Russia.

       I hate to sound this critical, but your reaction looks an awful lot like cope.

       In that vein, some are taking undue comfort from the fact that the jihadis have not acted against the Russian military assets.

       IMHO that take is silly. The rebels never expected the government to collapse so quickly. They need to regroup before they decide what to do next. It is premature to declare the Russian bases to be safe. Ukrainians were training the jihadis! This has all the hallmarks of a US/UK operation, as some commentators are already pointing out (CIA? MI6? Maybe we will get more breadcrumbs). The backers would be very keen to further weaken Russia’s position in the Middle East.
       1. Acacia December 9, 2024 at 9:52 am

          RT is reporting that some security guarantees have been given for Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions on Syrian territory:

          https://www.rt.com/russia/609005-syria-security-guarantee-for-russians/

          Unnamed Kremlin source, tho, so we’ll see.
          1. Polar Socialist December 9, 2024 at 10:11 am

             TASS also reported that the political side of the previous opposition hopes to retain “good relations” with Russia. As they say, they need all the help they can get.

             Recall that Russians have been running the reconciliation centers in Syria, Russians negotiated the bus convoys from Aleppo (and elsewhere) to Idlib and Russian have provided humanitarian help and medical services (often by Russian Muslims), so they probably have larger networks in Syria than Assad or Mossad had.

             Russia has also dealt extensively with Taleban government in Afghanistan, so they should be quite aware of how to deal with an Islamists group trying to (re)build a nation.

             That said, again, I wouldn’t make any bets yet. Even if it would make sense to keep Russia as a friend in case Turkiyet or Israel gets too greedy, it really depends on whether Syria remains as a semi-functional country with somebody in control, or whether it follows the Libyan path.
             1. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:54 am

                Whether the Jihadis had a deal with the Kremlin or not, they know they are in a weird situation: they have wound up with an odd coalition (esp with all the defectors they took), untrustworthy neighbors, limited credibility with their new subjects or with many regional powers, etc. They will not make new enemies who are not harming them yet and they won’t give up weapons, at least not conscientiously. Things can evolve very weirdly, I expect, if people aren’t careful
                1. Polar Socialist December 9, 2024 at 3:03 pm

                   Maybe there was a reason the parliamentary Syria invited the Soviets in after the Suez crisis in 1956, less than 10 years after the independence.

                   Almost as if Syria needs, regardless of who governs it, some strong outside power to help against the pressure from Turkiyet, Israel and The West.
       2. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:42 pm

          The backers will have to at least free the grain from east to go to the west, in Sria. That will likely not happen and HST might need some Russian shipments of wheat. The hungry stomach is the cause of all revolutions, some quite successfull.
          1. John k December 9, 2024 at 8:21 pm

             Any nation also needs oil these days. The oil and wheat will be a treasure they critically need, and trump thinks that’s his spoils of war. But their base was in the east, might be hard to deny the new Syrian rulers. Plus, as the new regime, they’ll think the golan is part of Syria… jihadists.erdogan/israel and dc had common cause, this is the day after. Celebrations might be short.
             And I wonder… maybe Syrian commanders could be bought, but maybe jihadis will resist that, at least for a while?
       3. Es s Ce Tera December 9, 2024 at 7:10 pm

          Yves, no worries, I appreciate the roundup and the critical take (I’m always happy to be proven wrong). Also, it’s not so much cope as, even though I’m subscribed to the same commentators, including Mercouris and Sleboda, I also have a day job and often can’t get to them, especially Merocuris, before everyone else.

          But yes, whatever role the Russians played, now that I’m looking, they certainly seem to not want to be perceived as having negotiated or influenced it, are acting shocked and dismayed.

          What led me down this line of inquiry/thinking was I wondered if HTS was pro-Palestinian or no, given these groups usually aren’t.

          Mikel, below, pointed out the Times of Israel had an HTS commander saying they were friendly with everyone in the ME, including Israel, which I find so difficult to believe. In any case, I went looking for that statement and found this published today:

          “An Israel official who spoke to The Times of Israel on Sunday would not say whether Israel saw the rebels’ successes as a positive development, noting only that Israel is “paying close attention all the time to what is happening in Syria, and is ready for any scenario.”

          HTS is not an Israel ally, and its leaders are no friends of Zion. In an address from October 18, 2023, a few days after Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel, al-Julani said that the “people of Gaza humiliated the pride of the occupying Zionists” and “brought joy to the hearts of the oppressed.”

          Similarly, HTS’s chief cleric Abdul Rahim Atoun, head of the Supreme Fatwa Council in Idlib, has a long history of anti-Semitic statements. For instance, after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli troops in Gaza in October, he wrote on his Telegram channel: “We ask the Lord to disgrace the Jews, oppress them and curse them and those who supported them.”

          It is seen as unlikely, however, that HTS’s antagonism to Israel will extend beyond the rhetoric of some of its clerics. “It is not in their interest,” Syria expert Peri said.”

          https://www.timesofisrael.com/who-are-the-rebels-battering-syrias-regime-and-do-they-pose-a-risk-to-israel/

          So on that point, I dunno.
    2. flora December 9, 2024 at 8:32 am

       Groveling and extending an olive branch to the US and CIA’s own creations? I don’t thing so. / ;)

       From Wikileaks twtr-X:

       US Secretary of State John Kerry in leaked audio on anti-Assad forces: “we’ve been putting an extraordinary amount of arms in… Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, huge amount of weapons coming in, huge amount of money…” (Sep 2016)

       https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1865751221434495332
    3. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 8:36 am

       Dima reported in this mornings video that Israel went deeper into Syria, past the Golan Heights towards the village of Daraa. I suspect Netanyahu will get greedy, and HTS may have something to say about that.

       Now that they’re the rulers of Syria, HTS has to act like grownups. Bibi will push boundaries …are they just gonna take that?
       1. Mike December 9, 2024 at 9:22 am

          I am not sure about this. Past behavior by the so-called Syrian opposition leads me to believe a certain amount of collusion has occurred (nudge nudge, wink wink). Details are murky, but top-secret intelligence files would be full of such evidence – files we will not see until the mists of time cloud our eyes.
    4. ilsm December 9, 2024 at 9:34 am

       HTS is jihad. Think caliphate.

       That said is destroying Israel on the road to Caliphate or will the Gold Dome open to Islam when Notre Dame is a mosque?

       What would the Samson option look like then?
       1. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 9:40 am

          Well if they want to destroy Israel they are in luck. In taking Syria they now have an actual border with Israel so now they can finally go for it. I’ll just hold my breath until it happens. :)
          1. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 9:49 am

             Gun to head, I’d guess that there is some sort of “cocktail napkin” agreement between HTS and Israel.

             Funny thing, though. Cocktail napkin agreements have a way of coming undone when things change. If HTS really has ambitions to rule the country, and not just take selfies driving into Damascus in Toyotas, they’ll have to worry about stuff like paying salaries, keeping a standing army, and rebuilding the shattered economy.

             All things that can easily lead to that cocktail napkin getting thrown in the trash like two-week old Chinese takeout.
             1. Polar Socialist December 9, 2024 at 10:18 am

                But can you give an example of an Islamist who turned against his/her earlier benefactors? /heavy /sarc
                1. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:45 pm

                   Hamas?!
                2. John k December 9, 2024 at 8:32 pm

                   Genocide, present and future, might affect thinking, it did for both Houthis and hesbollah. Gaza gonna get a lot worse, easy to imagine 2 mil starvations. And on deck is I think 6 mil in West Bank. Jihadists might be more sympathetic to Muslim street than the Jordan and gulf elites. Or Assad was, for that matter.
          2. Mikel December 9, 2024 at 11:59 am

             Israel bombards military, government buildings across Damascus following HTS takeover – The Cradle

             “Dozens of Israeli airstrikes hit the Mazzeh Military Airport along with customs and intelligence buildings, the security square, scientific research facilities, and defense laboratories.”

             “…Additionally, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed the Khalkhala air base in southern Syria, two regional security sources told Reuters.

             The airbase was evacuated by the Syrian army overnight as militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of the capital, Damascus.

             The regional security sources said at least six strikes hit the air base, which is located near the Druze-majority city of Suwayda. The base has a large stockpile of rockets and missiles left behind by the Syrian army.

             One source claimed that the attack appeared to be aimed at preventing these weapons from falling into the hands of HTS.

             However, a militant commander who participated in the HTS attack on Aleppo a week ago told The Times of Israel that they are committed to friendly relations with Israel.

             “We are open to friendship with everyone in the region – including Israel. We don’t have enemies other than the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iran. What Israel did against Hezbollah in Lebanon helped us a great deal. Now we are taking care of the rest,” the commander stated…”

             And the US is bombing a few things by other reports.

             As of today, this is where things stand.
       2. PlutoniumKun December 9, 2024 at 11:20 am

          The modern caliphate is uninterested in physical mosques – its a eschatological and apocalyptic movement which is not tied to particular geographical areas. It is a theology of the mind, not one of hierarchies, buildings or land. They have no problem with blowing up mosques or other holy Muslim holy places.

          This is the prime reason they have no issue whatever with Israel. Their core enemy is what they see as apostate Muslims – secular Sunni or any Shia. They see no contradiction whatever with siding with Israel over fellow Muslims, so long as they have satisfied themselves that the muslims are apostates.
          1. Aurelien December 9, 2024 at 1:45 pm

             Absolutely. Though they do want to build a physical caliphate, which is why their main concern is with capturing territory and installing an Islamic State there. Israel’s time will come at the very end, when Jerusalem is taken by “seven armies” from places like Syria and Yemen, according to the prophecies the IS favour. Syria is actually key in all this, because according to one of the alleged sayings of Mohammed, the end of times will come when the Islamic fighters are at the gates of Damascus and Antioch. Damascus is already in the bag. Antioch is in Idlib province. So watch this space.

             Which prompts the thought that, if serious fighting breaks out in Syria, we could be in for another round of European teenagers departing for Syria to fight in the jihad. That’s all we need.
             1. Captain Obvious December 9, 2024 at 5:13 pm

                Antioch, of the Holy Hand Grenade fame, is on the Turkish side of border (Hatay province).
                1. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:48 pm

                   That place where after a long siege, the Crusaders ended up not only killing the inhabitants, but tasting their flesh as well?
             2. Polar Socialist December 9, 2024 at 7:08 pm

                Probably not what you had in mind, but the permanent representative of Syria in UN has officially requested on behalf of the Syrian government international intervention to stop Israeli attacks.

                Also, while telling the journalist about Security Council discussions regarding the situation in Syria, the permanent representative of Russia offered to assist the United States in locating al-Julani, a terrorist wanted by the State Department.
    5. Lathe Biosas December 9, 2024 at 10:02 am

       Israel has supported the “rebels” in Syria in the past, armed them and provided medical support.

       ISIS has never harmed Israel, to the best of my knowledge and has not lifted one finger for the Palestinians.
       1. hk December 9, 2024 at 10:58 am

          Israel also funded Hamas, when they were rivals to PLO. They tried to organize the Shia in South Lebanon…against PLO. They gave weapons to Iranians, for use against Iraq. None of these turned out well for them.
          1. PlutoniumKun December 9, 2024 at 11:11 am

             To be fair, funding Islamicists worked very well for Israel in that they successfully destroyed the secular Palestinian movement. Its also proven to be a good form of leverage against Jordan and Egypt.
             1. hk December 9, 2024 at 1:24 pm

                In the short term. But they also created much more intractable problem for the long run, as we are witnessing today. Jordan and Egypt are subject to the leverage as long as they fear their own populations more than they do Israel–and this was true, up to a point, with Assad, too. Now, we have no idea what the supporting coalition for the new regime in Damascus will be like–but, if they try to build a serious local coalition for durable rule, they can’t be indifferent to Israeli and US invasions (and may need to stand up against Turkey every now and then, too). I figure that Turks will be clever enough to at least put up a pretense of negotiating with them (even if they get most out of those deals–they can’t destroy the crediblity of the Jihadis totally.) I don’t expect Israel would respect them.

                Now, Bibi could surprise me any minute now, I suppose, by recognizing al Golani (by that nom de guerre, preferably) as the rightful leader of Syria with whom they will negotiate some agreement with, but I don’t expect that to happen….
12. Zagonostra December 9, 2024 at 8:18 am

    >Slain Healthcare CEO’s Life Airbrushed by Media Ken Klippenstein

    The coverage seems more like a knighthood than journalism.

    I for one wouldn’t mind a reversion to Medieval justice. But some CEO’s (I’d include politicians and anyone in a position of responsibility/authority) are far from Knights, they are not even vultures, who after all perform a useful function. I don’t know much about the details of Brian Thompson life and whether he sold his soul to Satan. I do feel that individuals who pursue deadly policies for selfish (illegal? what if laws themselves are unjust) gain, should be punished. Capital punishment like the Chinese regularly do? Well, if they are putting tainted/toxins in the air, water, food that my kids and I are eating, maybe so…the argument can be made that our justice system is itself defective, so maybe a significant number of years in prison and a forfeiture of assets may be more palatable…maybe the lack of concern for apprehending killed CEO is a sign of populace becoming radicalized. maybe it’s time we were.

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3277649/chinese-legal-community-asks-where-line-death-penalty-corrupt-officials
    1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 10:08 am

       I like Klippenstein’s lede, Journalistic skepticism isn’t magically exempt when someone dies. Maybe “Journalism isn’t dead, it just smells funny”. The amounts of money associated with what appears to be (his) fraudulent behavior are obscene. Remembering that one person’s profit is another’s loss, my question is why is the msm dutifully ignoring this as a motivation angle in the killing.
       1. mary jensen December 9, 2024 at 4:01 pm

          Can anyone help me out with this? After the so-called Great Financial Crisis there followed a slew of movies about ‘bad bankers‘ etc, among which was one – a sort of B movie style-wise – of a man who decided to assassinate a particular bad actor responsible for economic mayhem. The assassin succeeded. Has anyone else seen that movie? I saw it on ‘Ranierland’ web site and cannot track it down. I would be most beholden to learn the name of the film.
          Monopoly money indeed.
13. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 8:27 am

    Oh, the countries falling are frightful
    But the ire is so delightful
    And since we’ve no place to go
    Let It Snowball! Let It Snowball! Let It Snowball!

    Man it doesn’t show signs of stopping
    And I brought me some corn for popping
    The leaders are turned out way down low
    Let It Snowball! Let It Snowball!

    When we finally kissed Assad goodbye
    How he’ll hate going out in a Moscow storm
    But if we really hold onto al-Qaeda tight
    All the way to Homs we’ll be in fine form

    And many countries are slowly dying
    And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
    But as long as we have leaders to depose
    Let It Snowball! Let It Snowball and snowball!

    When we finally kissed Assad goodbye
    How he’ll hate going out in a Moscow storm
    But if we really hold onto al-Qaeda tight
    All the way to Homs we’ll be in fine form

    And many countries are slowly dying
    And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
    But as long as we have leaders to depose
    Let It Snowball! Let It Snowball and snowball!
14. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 8:42 am

    “U.S. working to destroy Syria’s remaining chemical weapons, official says”

    ‘The U.S. is working with several other countries in the Middle East to prevent chemical weapons possessed by the Assad regime from falling into the wrong hands, a U.S. official told reporters.’

    Everything old is new again. Remember when the US said that they had to go into Iraq because WMDs but in the end, none were found because they were not there. Bush even made a joke about it a year or so after the invasion while his troops were dying. Here the US – and probably the UK & France – do not want to admit that all those chemical weapons were eliminated years ago under that Russian brokered deal. And that means that their attacks on Syria based on Jihadist claims were based on lies. But I don’t know why they care at this stage considering that Syria has folded. Biden even went out of his way to say that US aid was conditional on Syria getting rid of those chemical weapons. I guess they must be stored in the same bunkers as Iraq’s WMD.
    1. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 8:47 am

       There are no chemical weapons, full stop.

       This has an aroma of crooked police fixing a crime scene to destroy evidence of their own wrongdoing. Destroy the evidence so that no impartial observer or pesky UN personnel can march into a warehouse and find … no chemical weapons.

       A pile of rubble tells no tales.
       1. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 9:04 am

          The Israelis just bombed a site in Syria that they swore had chemical weapons stored thereby leaving nothing but a pile of rubble.
          1. ChrisFromGA December 9, 2024 at 9:13 am

             Exactly.

             I recognize this is a strategic defeat for Russia, but this isn’t exactly good news for the US either.

             Now that Russia has left, there is a vacuum and no common enemy for the SDF and HTS. The neocons probably want a failed state that they can use to stir up trouble in the region against Iran. However, a failed state on their border isn’t in Israel’s interest. That’s probably why Bibi is going for broke sending troops way past the Golan Heights. He’ll want as big a buffer zone as possible, and why stop there? Damascus is not that far from Daraa.

             And then there is Turkey … Erdogan is a winner but he’s no longer aligned with US interests, either. He broke it so he bought the china. He’ll need those weapons and a functioning Syrian army, plus oil revenue from the east to support the economy.

             Meanwhile, Assad is safely in Moscow, sipping hot cocoa by the fire.
             1. Martin Oline December 9, 2024 at 11:39 am

                The situation in Syria, or however many state-lets it may become, is analogous to the (true story) man who tried to rid his trailer of mice and ends up burning it down.
                Larry Johnson said today that Syria is “now the problem of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel.” This fire will not spread to Iran without outside help.
                There is no reason for Russia to leave the bases on the Mediterranean. They were invited there and the U.S, was never invited into Syria.
             2. hk December 9, 2024 at 1:30 pm

                It can’t be good for anyone. I think it’s the same situation as Lebanon in early 1980s, except 10 times bigger (with Turkey reprising the role of Syria). Someone has to invade full time eventually and establish order (probably Turkey–they are the only ones with both interest, patience, and resources to do something of that magnitude). Israel won’t be able to hold on to whatever they manage to grab. For all we know, this could (in the medium to long run–so it’s a total wild guess) set in motion a formation of a Sunni Jihadist Hizb’ullah in Syria with Turkish backing/friendship the way Shia Hizb’ullah, with Syrian backing/friendship came out of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Wouldn’t it be ironic that a guy with nom de guerre Golani is in the middle of all these?
                1. mary jensen December 9, 2024 at 3:48 pm

                   “Meanwhile, Assad is safely in Moscow, sipping hot cocoa by the fire.”
                   Hot cocoa? Doubtful without a doubt. According to ‘The Hitch’, the fireside beverage of choice in the Middle East is Johnny Walker Black. I reckon Mr. Assad’s mornings and afternoons are spent on various phones with various bankers in various countries across the globe. The evening he’s sat in a good lounge chair next to a bottle of JWB, reflecting on his snows of yesteryear, the what was and the what might have been:

                   shorter version:
                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnaUe1mrJ9E&t=11s&ab_channel=SovietRussianBearZOV
                   some surprises on the pipe organ:
                   https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr0j0Yi0uIoqIRBSrF8T6sD8hoqPsCHNN

                   Let’s hope the music plays on.
             3. mary jensen December 9, 2024 at 3:26 pm

                “Meanwhile, Assad is safely in Moscow, sipping hot cocoa by the fire.”

                According to The Hitch, the tipple of choice across the Middle East is Johnny Walker Black. After a long morning on phones with various banks across the globe I reckon Mr. Assad is in a comfortable chair next to a bottle of JWB, reflecting on his snows of yesteryear and what was and what might have been etc:
                shorter version:
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVH0XzBY6Bs&ab_channel=kodakstudi1
                longer version:
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrg6vRQ6X94&ab_channel=mikephillipson
                and surprises from the pipe organ:
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIAl-g7pd6U&list=PLr0j0Yi0uIoqIRBSrF8T6sD8hoqPsCHNN&ab_channel=TerraSanctaOrganFestival

                Let’s hope the music goes on or would that be too much to ask…
                1. mary jensen December 9, 2024 at 3:50 pm

                   double post eeek
             4. Kouros December 9, 2024 at 6:57 pm

                Everyone talks about strategic defeat for Russia. I don’t understand why? How much actually has Russia invested in the fight, from the beginning. If in 2015 Putin took a while to be convinced by General Qassem to get involed in helping Syrian government (the implication being that Russia was prepared to see the fall of Assad then and deal with the fallout), why to get bogged down by all this talk that Russia lost? As long as Russia is winning in Ukraine, impoverishing Europe by the energy not shipped there (regardless of reasons), and with a restless population in both Europe and the US, Russia can really sit back and watch. Take care of its internal problems and raise the quality of life for its citizens.

                It is a war of attrition and its nice to see how the combined west is attritting itself big time.
          2. Balan Aroxdale December 9, 2024 at 4:25 pm

             Israel is targeting military sites and government offices

             https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1866198107161022943#m

             https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1865770363864469651#m

             The goal is obvious. Make Syria a completely failed state and prevent ever again its rise as even a 3rd rate military power. Iraq-ize the aftermath and clear the path for eventual Israeli colonization of large parts up to and including Damascus.

             I very much doubt even a fraction of those Syrian refugees are going to be able or allowed to return. Certainly not to the south.
             1. Polar Socialist December 9, 2024 at 4:37 pm

                The rumor is that Israel is running out of bombs, again. On the other hand, as one expert (Patarames) noticed, this is what Israel air force does when Syria doesn’t have a functional air defense anymore. Those Pantsirs and Buks were worth something, obviously.

                Should USA send more bombs to Israel, soon the only Syrians with any heavy weapons are the ones residing close to the Russian bases…
          3. redleg December 9, 2024 at 8:41 pm

             If true, where’s the plume? Where are the casualties? Blowing up a warehouse of chemical munitions doesn’t make the poisons vanish, and the bigger the stockpile the bigger the cloud. Analogues: East Palestine, Atlanta metro.
       2. pjay December 9, 2024 at 9:34 am

          The Demon Assad has finally been removed by the Forces of Light, but it is necessary to remind readers – especially humanitarian liberal readers – of his Evilness. After all, history suggests that the aftermath of Hitlerian tyrant removal is not always smooth, so we need to remember who to blame for the resulting chaos. If a “US Official” briefs intrepid reporter Barak Ravid about our chemical weapons concerns, then they must be real. Thank God “the US and its allies” are on it!

          Oh, here is some useful information on Barak Ravid for those who might be a tiny bit skeptical of this story:

          https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-israel-unit-8200-spies-american-media/288457/
15. ilsm December 9, 2024 at 8:53 am

    A bit of odd humor!

    Jake Sullivan (less white Cheney) our neocon voice seems worried that ISIS may [be the excuse our jihadis jump the shark) foment secular violence in Syria……..

    Shame!
16. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 8:58 am

    When I was a young boy
    I wanted to sail around the world
    That’s the life for me
    Living on the ISS, you see
    Spirit of a sailor
    Circumnavigates the globe
    The lust of a pioneer
    Will acknowledge no frontier

    I remember you by, thunderclap in the sky
    Lightning flash, tempers flare
    ‘Round the horn 16 x daily if you dare
    I just spent six months in a leaky Boeing
    Lucky just to keep afloat

    Stranded in space
    Rugged individuals
    Glisten like pearls
    At the top of the world
    The tyranny of distance
    Didn’t stop the cavalier Russians
    So why should it stop me
    I’ll conquer and stay free

    Ah, c’mon all you lads
    Let’s forget and forgive
    There’s a world to explore
    Tales to tell back on shore
    I just spent six months in a leaky Boeing
    Six months in a leaky Boeing

    Ship-wrecked love can be cruel
    Don’t be fooled by her kind
    There’s a wind in my sails
    Will protect and prevail
    I just spent six months in a leaky Boeing
    Nothing to it leaky Boeing

    Six Months in a Leaky Boat, by Split Enz

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSGpLto1yxU
17. Louis Fyne December 9, 2024 at 9:01 am

    >>>sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land

    this is an issue that has been known for a while. I believe the Big Boxes still sell one form of it “Milorganite”.

    Always shaking my head at a certain form of eco-activism that simplisticly pushes anything “green”…drink tap water, use “green” sewage-based fertiziler.

    Lots of regulated water is garbage, just because it is “recycled” it can be garbage too
    1. jhallc December 9, 2024 at 9:37 am

       https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/03/30/boston-massachusetts-pfas-forever-chemicals-sludge-deer-island

       This is also an issue for MA sludge that is used for fertilizer.
    2. Jabura Basadai December 9, 2024 at 11:33 am

       PFAS has been a big problem in Michigan and sludge tainted a farm in Brighton Michigan so bad the cattle were destroyed and the farm rendered useless – all the beef sold by this farm was poisoning people for quite a while – the farmer and his wife have lost everything and wondered if they will fall ill from the contamination that had been going on for over a decade – as i had mentioned previously, landfills that had been sending their liquid slurry to city water purification for cleaning and started rejecting it if contaminated almost a decade ago, citing the slurry as the main source of PFAS/PFOA – it is now being held in containment ponds that have been filling up – i sold very high end industrial filtering systems of a combination of ultra-filtration and 2-step RO and landfills were on my cold-call list – the system i sold does remove it but still left with a concentrated liquid that is difficult if not impossible to destroy – much like the oil story, the manufacturers knew the problem way before the public became aware – 3M has paid out $10B in damages so far and has promised to end production by 2026 – isn’t that sweet of them(sarc) – back in the 70’s we had the PBB tainted animal feed that poisoned the populace – feel fortunate that back then in the 70’s was living in Hawaii and since back in Michigan almost 5 decades ago have always used RO water for consumption and have been a vegetarian since i was 19 – just lucky –
       1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 1:55 pm

          This has been an ongoing issue here too. Versions of your filtration system have been installed in at least three communities here. Hoosick Falls, NY is on that list. You can still enjoy the irony found on a rusting sign overlooking the Hoosick river that reads (parsing) “Hoosick Falls – Best Water in America” referencing some long ago award.
          1. Jabura Basadai December 9, 2024 at 2:39 pm

             the system i sold was very expensive and primary sold into manufacturing settings; potato chips, distilling, food processing, chemical, etc…. and was a six figure number tickling seven – at scale for a municipal water treatment plant it would be very, very, very expensive – and still left with a concentrate of the crap – there is an ongoing issue with their use at military airports where used for fire suppression – here in Michigan the problem at Wurtsmith AFB is still being worked out as well as at other hotspots in the state – i had explored deep well injection, high-temp burning with scrubbers, activated carbon filtration, thought about using to make concrete block – each had their own problems – and still left with the crap – there were two research projects i explored, one lab around Cleveland and another out of Mich State U, that were exploring some form of electrolysis to change the elements into harmless components (please excuse my lack of understanding-above my pay grade) – both of the processes were experimental and not tested at scale but if possible the expense would be astronomical IIRC – PFOS/PFOA is some really nasty stuff and a reason it is called “forever chemicals” – better living through chemistry is a razor sharp double edge sword –
    3. lyman alpha blob December 9, 2024 at 1:12 pm

       You beat me to it. When I read the article, it sounded very familiar and I remembered something similar happening in Maine a few years back. Looked it up, and turns out Maine was the first state to ban biosolids as fertilizer back in 2022 – https://www.mainepublic.org/2023-04-10/our-sewage-often-becomes-fertilizer-problem-is-its-tainted-with-pfas

       “Maine banned the use of sludge-based fertilizers altogether in 2022, the first and only state to do so.”

       You’d think that when someone first raises the alarm, the authorities would take notice and ban the unsafe practice. But not when there’s $$$ to be made apparently.

       As a species, we really are too stupid to be the dominant ones on this planet. Time to give the cephalopods or ravens a chance. Maybe ants.
       1. Jabura Basadai December 9, 2024 at 2:53 pm

          “But not when there’s $$$ to be made apparently”
          it’s also a budgetary problem which is what i ran into again and again – everyone loved the devices i sold but could find no way to afford them and have $$ for the rest of the processes involved – the $11billion 3M paid out was for water treatment facilities primarily and other commercial situations – 3M is crying bankruptcy about the flood of personal and class-action suits still being filed – last time this subject was discussed here the movie “Dark Waters” was mentioned, it is a chilling and sad tale that is excellent and well worth the watch – it addresses the perspective you point out –
       2. Revenant December 9, 2024 at 6:33 pm

          The unhappy farmers in the UK could bring the government to its knees in days by refusing to accept sewage sludge from sewage plants. The plumbing would back up in days!

          HMG would have to authorise emergency dumping at sea (the old method the EU outlawed). But sewage in the water, land or sea, is a hot topic tight now, as is the parasitic rentier ownership of the water industry, using its reliable cashflows to leverage up and pay special dividends and deequitise the commonweal.

          If the farmers went on strike, the shit would hit the fan and the government would have no good move: everything would involve a compulsory state shitting on the voter, hand in hand with the City.

          I do hope it happens. Apparently the relevant bodies are terrified….

          (But I also hope it stops because of the heavy metal, PFAS, oestrogen mimic and pharma contamination of crop and grazing land).
18. adara9 December 9, 2024 at 9:42 am

    Re “Down the Rabbit Hole” first sentence: “It’s been exactly one month since Donald Trump was elected for a second term as President of the United States, and I don’t know a single person who isn’t struggling to make sense of it all.”

    Apparently, the author (a) is actually completely isolated from anyone who is not strongly anti-Trump (i.e., at least half the country), and/or (b) the folks around them who aren’t bothered by the election results are keeping quiet & self-censoring, knowing the likely responses if they were to speak up.
    1. pjay December 9, 2024 at 11:24 am

       Yes. I read this just to find out whether the article was referring to some type of conspiracy theorizing. Turns out it was really about rabbits – as a metaphor for staying safe in a dangerous – i.e. Trumpian – world (those MAGA folks are probably out shooting those cute little creatures). Such tender sentiments. Perhaps an ostrich hole would have been a better metaphor.

       Let me say that despite my cynicism I have a sincere reverence for nature, and an appreciation for its majesty and mystery in contrast to the deprivations of a lot of human behavior. But this essay does not evoke that sentiment in me – only my cynicism.
    2. wol December 9, 2024 at 11:57 am

       ‘… keeping quiet & self-censoring, knowing the likely responses if they were to speak up.’

       I was at a holiday party Saturday night. Guests included a former art gallerist, now in her 80’s. Full-length mink coat, work done. She said she reads the NYTimes every morning and The New Yorker cover-to-cover. She wondered how we were going to get through four years of Trump.
       1. lyman alpha blob December 9, 2024 at 1:15 pm

          If she’s in her 80s, apparently she lived through the first four years if Trump. Perhaps you could offer her a memory booster the next time you run into her…
          1. wol December 9, 2024 at 2:06 pm

             I repressed the urge to mention getting through the next fifty days without a nuclear exchange.
19. The Rev Kev December 9, 2024 at 9:58 am

    “Taliban poppy ban is economic hit to farmers”

    ‘The ban on growing opium poppy has had devastating consequences for Afghanistan’s rural population. The Taliban have yet to offer alternatives, and calls for international aid are growing louder.’

    For some reason there are an awful lot of people that want Afghanistan to be the center of Opium poppy growing once more and are seriously unhappy how the Taliban are trying to eliminate it. In fact, back in June a report came out from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and they were warning that because of the heroin shortage, that-

    ‘This could “lead to an increase in overdoses, especially if the alternative opioids include highly potent substances such as some fentanyl analogues or Nitazenes that have already emerged in some European countries in recent years.”’

    https://www.rt.com/russia/600089-taliban-opium-overdose-deaths/

    If the Chinese vowed to eliminate fentanyl production over the next three months, would the UN Office on Drugs and Crime protest this as well? It’s a funny old world that we live in.
    1. Donaldo December 9, 2024 at 10:16 am

       Taliban poppy ban is economic hit to farmers Deutsche Welle

       Judging by relatively recent protests, German farmers are taking some economic hits too. They should transition to poppy, because markets. Make Germany Agricultural Giant Again.
20. timbers December 9, 2024 at 10:06 am

    “Trump calls for immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and says a US withdrawal from NATO is possible AP” …. @@@@ Putin should announce one of his conditions for negotiations is US withdrawal from NATO. He might add Poland and Romania, but maybe not just yet, as that might dilute the announcement hilighlighting Trumps desire to leave NATO. At some later date he should prepare to also announce the Black Sea is a Russian lake and any and all US and NATO ships/military assets aimed at aggression towards Russia including naval bases will be destroyed if still present by the time Olresnick is fully stocked, due to The Wests inability to use the Black Sea responsibly. Putin should privately communicate to the Pentagon that Russia is the most powerful military on Earth and from now USA will to act accordingly with deference towards Moscow.
21. Mikel December 9, 2024 at 10:17 am

    China develops record-breaking 504-qubit quantum computer powered by Xiaohong chip – Interesting Engineering

    “The Xiaohong chip is expected to match the performance of major international cloud-based quantum computing platforms like IBM in terms of qubit lifetime, gate fidelity, and quantum circuit depth.”

    That sounds really impressive. At least the article makes it sound that way.
    Why doesn’t IBM get hype over that? Like Nvidia hype?
22. Jason Boxman December 9, 2024 at 10:41 am

    Are we really so divided, so used to dehumanizing one another, that people are out here openly celebrating the cold-blooded murder of a hardworking family man?

    Interesting, because I was just considering this. So anyone engaged in social murder is excused if they have a family? What if the killer (of the CEO) had a family? Perhaps having a pet can be enough to absolve someone of any crimes?
    1. Captains Obvious December 9, 2024 at 5:33 pm

       Well, Hunter is absolved of any crimes. I don’t know if all those prostitutes count as pets.
       1. John k December 9, 2024 at 9:05 pm

          He has a daughter. That’s even better than a pet.
23. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 11:11 am

    To compare murders in the Big Apple, 44 years ago I had landed in JFK after taking the red-eye from LA for a coin show in Manhattan, and my boss and I went to a coin dealer’s store in town, and he was doing business, and the guard there asked if i’d like to read the NYT, and I said yes so he handed it to me, and the top half was the usual pablum for the time, heavy inflation, blah blah blah, and then when I looked at the bottom fold is when I learned of John Lennon’s demise by a lone gunman.

    I’d really hoped for the Beatles to get back together, and tears formed rapidly in my eyes by the news-a tragedy.

    I walked over to the Dakota with many hundreds of others so gathered, and everybody was singing Beatles songs and crying all the while, a more melancholy moment i’ve yet to see since.
24. t December 9, 2024 at 11:27 am

    In my personal little corner of the world, the people who are laughing about the murder of this CEO have spent years laughing, darkly, about their struggles with healthcare, friends rationing insulin preventable deaths, and other horrors of the American Healthcare system.

    The look alike contest was something, though. And then dozens of people just walking buy wearing basically the same clothes. (Reminded me of all the hoodie talk when Travon Martin was murdered: hoodie=criminal. As if it was possible to buy a freaking jacket without a hood at the time.)
25. Cat Burglar December 9, 2024 at 11:35 am

    On the principle of You Can Never Be Cynical enough, consider the Thompson killing.

    If the commenters that think it was a professional murder are right, then what powerful interest would be threatened with ruin by Thompson? I don’t think the stock diddling makes the cut as a motivator, as Yves has pointed out. Thompson could have paid any gambling debts out of pocket. Somebody very powerful felt existentially threatened.

    In Japan, there is a small industry of disruptions and revelations before investor meetings, to extort money from the big dogs. Thompson was shot on the way to the investor meeting, and the UHC in-house security was nowhere.

    It might not matter if Thompson was crooked, and using his special inside knowledge against his employer, or if he really was the honest Iowa guy who really cared about insuring people’s health and was about to go roguein the public interest, but perhaps something was about to be publicly exposed at the investor meeting that would profoundly threaten someone very powerful, then we might want to direct our attention there as well.
    1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 1:28 pm

       Good thoughts. A public awareness has been raised no matter the motive, including the idea that anyone with the motivation and some operational chops can strike at the heart of our masters.
       Interestingly, I came across this in an iteration on the Who Was Brian Thompson pieces. This concerns the insider trading accusations. From kcci.com, Des Moines,

       Who was Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare fatally shot in Manhattan?
       Thompson in May was sued for alleged fraud and illegal insider trading. The Hollywood Firefighters’ Pension Fund filed a lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group, CEO Andrew Witty, Executive Chairman Stephen Hemsley and Thompson, alleging the executives schemed to inflate the company’s stock by failing to disclose a U.S. Justice Department antitrust investigation into the company.
       
       Note Witty and Hemsley are co-conspirators. More,
       The lawsuit claimed Thompson knew about the investigation as early as October 2023 and sold 31% of his company shares, making a $15 million profit, 11 days before the Journal publicized the probe. The Journal report sent UnitedHealth’s stock sinking 5%.
       Those numbers are probably pretty easy to confirm. Here is the meat of it,

       The revelation of the alleged insider trading led Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey to write a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 29, calling on Chairman Gary Gensler to investigate UnitedHealth for the executives’ stock sales. The senators noted Thompson faced up to $5 million in penalties and 20 years of prison time if convicted.
       That’s hard time. Perhaps Thompson was deemed a risk for being plea deal “agreement capable”.

       By appearances UHC seems to operate as organized crime. It should be no surprise that violence as a means is included in that profile. It would seem plausible that the action was conceived and set into motion from this arena.
       1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 2:24 pm

          UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting latest: Person of interest Luigi Mangione under arrest In Altoona, PA
          1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 2:30 pm

             Reads like he was a lone wolf. What are the odds of that? Yves, that was a heck of a call.
    2. divadab December 9, 2024 at 1:37 pm

       My thoughts also – a possibility – Thompson was being investigated for insider trading, at a minimum. WHo knows what he could have revealed that would damage the interests of powerful people who scruple at nothing, including murder?
       1. Yves Smith December 9, 2024 at 2:17 pm

          HUH???

          Thompson was at the top of the food chain. The worst that would happen is he would pay a fine.
          1. JBird4049 December 9, 2024 at 3:06 pm

             True. The higher you are, the less punishment you will receive. Wealth really does wash away all sins.
26. Wukchumni December 9, 2024 at 11:44 am

    Well, he intervened and created a mideast mess
    “Excitable goy,” they all said
    And he rubbed out Soleimani in his quest
    “Excitable goy,” they all said
    Well, he’s just an excitable goy

    He took the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
    “Excitable goy,” they all said
    And the Zionists made a hero out of him
    “Excitable goy,” they all said
    Well, he’s just an excitable goy

    [Chorus]
    (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)

    He took little notice of the Palestinian pogrom (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    “Excitable goy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    And he killed her hopes on November 5th (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    “Excitable goy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    Well, he’s just an excitable goy

    After four long years, they let him back in the house
    “Excitable goy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    And he dug up Jared for a second round
    “Excitable goy,” they all said (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    Well, he’s just an excitable goy

    (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    (Ooh, ah-ooh)
    (Ooh-ooh, excitable goy)
    (Ooh, ah-ooh)

    Excitable Boy, by Warren Zevon

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZokPAuhD6k
27. Mikel December 9, 2024 at 12:23 pm

    Fearful of crime, the tech elite transform their homes into military bunkers – WaPo

    They must be about to turn up the levels of enshittification to Dystopia 20.0 for everybody else.
28. more news December 9, 2024 at 12:33 pm

    https://x.com/nedalalamari/status/1866090448621580332
    Israel is taking advantage of the new Syrian state’s vulnerabilities and encroaching on Syrian territory.
    This is completely unacceptable and violates the sovereignty of Syria.
    We fought against Assad, and we are ready to defend Syrian territory from any aggression.
    We have always stated that we are a people who do not love war or killing; however, what is currently happening in southern Syria is completely unacceptable.
    I’m one of the people who defended Israel’s right to destroy Hezbollah because it is a threat to the entire region, I will now stand with all my strength against this Israeli advancement in Syria.
    I urge the Free Syrian Army to advance quickly and prevent the Israeli military’s progress so that we can start forming a new government.
    Anyone here who supports the Israeli army’s advance towards Syrian territory will be a hypocrite and a liar.
29. ChrisRUEcon December 9, 2024 at 1:41 pm

    #UHGAssassinationSuspectIdentified

    Grab it before it gets taken down from X – Luigi Mangione

    Per various outlets, apprehended after being id’d at a MacDonalds in Altoona, PA.

    His X profiles reads: M.S.E. and B.S.E. in Computer Science @ Penn

    Wow …
    1. lyman alpha blob December 9, 2024 at 2:09 pm

       Of course it’s someone who probably has a really crappy healthcare plan who turns him in.
    2. GramSci December 9, 2024 at 2:31 pm

       That was quick. Down at 2:30 DC time.
       1. ChrisRUEcon December 9, 2024 at 2:40 pm

          Still up for me … might just be a persistent cache.
       2. Donaldo December 9, 2024 at 2:51 pm

          https://xcancel.com/PepMangione
          1. juno mas December 9, 2024 at 10:28 pm

             It appears from the x-ray on his page that he’s had back surgery of some kind. Maybe from lifting heavy weights in the gym?

             Insurance claim denied because of gym activity?
    3. Cat Burglar December 9, 2024 at 2:39 pm

       His quotation file at Goodreads is still up. Quotes from Russell, Kaczynski, Kurzweil, Aldous Huxley, Mill, Pollan.

       Facebook page still up.
       1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 2:55 pm

          He’s listed as cofounder of “AppRoars”. Their fb page is down. I don’t have x. could be interesting
          1. mrsyk December 9, 2024 at 3:06 pm

             International Business times has a bio sketch out here.
             states that manifesto contains quotes from the Unabomber.
             1. ChrisRUEcon December 9, 2024 at 10:51 pm

                #TYVM
30. Sub-Boreal December 9, 2024 at 2:26 pm

    This wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card, but it fits perfectly: Guyana considers opening Jonestown massacre site to tourism.
31. GramSci December 9, 2024 at 3:36 pm

    Re: U.S. House ripping out Huawei and ZTE telecom equipment in ‘defense’ budget.

    War pork for silly con valley.
32. ACPAL December 9, 2024 at 7:57 pm

    Off topic, or maybe on.

    It may be my imagination but I think I’m seeing some AI generated replies filtering in. These seem to be heavy with “compare and contrast,” snippets and phrases that could have come from anywhere, and a lack of humanity in the writing. Often these are so uninspiring that it’s hard to find anything useful or memorable. Often there are errors like duplicated words or words that just don’t fit. A few will have a sentence or two at the end that’s noticeably different in style as if a human wanted to add their two-cents.

    Now that you know what to look for you should be able to easily find them, and their authors. In my opinion these degrade the value of the comments section of NC.
    1. Yves Smith December 10, 2024 at 10:00 am

       No, the way our mod software is set up that cannot happen. Even my drafting in comments has gotten worse of late. Probably bad multitasking.
    2. AG December 10, 2024 at 2:53 pm

       >”AI generated replies filtering in”
       dammit you got me!

       (on a serious note, more and more people are telling me to use A.I. They do and seem to have zero worries. May be it’s just me but I find that attitude alarming – I remember being in 7th grade we were allowed to use calculators for the first time. I distrusted those things so much I counter-checked them manually for an entire year. Unfortunately this interest in numbers escaped me over the years. For whatever internal reason.)
       1. Captain Obvious December 11, 2024 at 7:33 am

          Calculators are hard science. Current AI hype is more akin to untested drug being put into mass (almost mandatory) use.
33. Jorge December 10, 2024 at 12:53 am

    The Sapiens link is broken. Here is the correct one:

    https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/migration-first-seafarers-asia-pacific/

    That site is extremely annoying. Good luck finding and reading anything on it.

Comments are closed.